The 802.16 family of standards were developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) to provide for fixed, portable, and/or mobile broadband wireless access (BWA) networks (e.g., the IEEE std. 802.16, published 2004). The Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) forum facilitates the deployment of broadband wireless networks based on the IEEE 802.16 standard. In particular, the WiMAX forum ensures the compatibility and inter-operability of broadband wireless equipment. For convenience, the terms “802.16” and “WiMAX” may be used interchangeably throughout this disclosure to refer to the IEEE 802.16 suite of air interface standards.
The WiMAX technology may support multimedia applications with multiple wireless connections characterized by quality of service (QoS) parameters. For example, the 802.16 family of standards provide packet classifiers to map the multiple wireless connections with user applications and/or interfaces such as an Ethernet network, an Internet protocol (IP) network, an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, a virtual local area network (VLAN), etc. To establish the multiple wireless connections of broadband services for a mobile subscriber station, service flow context such as service flow, QoS, classifier, and/or other suitable parameters may need to be provided and/or transferred during initial registration and/or handoff of the mobile subscriber station.